A Stitch in Time
by mabelreid
Summary: One shot Tag to Spencer. Spencer encounters an intruder in his Houston hotel room, who will change his fate. The story takes place the day before Spencer travels to Mexico.


_**Disclaimer: see my profile**_

 _ **A/n one shot tag to "Spencer." This idea came to me when I was listening to "Planets of the Universe," by Stevie Nicks. Please enjoy and many thanks to my beta for all her hard work editing my many mistakes.**_

The harsh light of the Texas sky and the stifling heat struck Spencer like a one-two punch in the face. He immediately slipped on his dark glasses and began the walk to his car. He was sweating profusely by the time he reached his rental car. His gratitude at driving a brand-new car was manifest in his sigh of relief when the blast of cool air from the AC filled the car about thirty seconds after he started the engine.

The drive to his hotel took longer than usual because he'd timed his exit from the Anderson Clinic, poorly. Rush hour was in full swing, and he was smack in the middle of it. He'd begun to find his way around Houston with greater ease, and he tried to decide if that was a good thing, or not. Eventually, he made a choice to stop at a local fast food franchise. The drive-thru line was long, and he was beginning to feel a headache coming on by the time he parked at his motel. The motel was a few steps up from the usual fleabag establishments he'd seen during his travels for his job. JJ, in her days as a liaison for the Bureau, had always procured something better for their stays out of town.

He parked his car, grabbed his dinner of fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, biscuits, and a soft drink. He hurried through the heat to his room and unlocked the door. The heavy drapes of the west facing the room cloaked it in shadows, but it was cool. He set the food on the round table, pushed the door shut and turned to face the room. His hand reached for his gun when he realized that someone sat in the chair next to the cheap table.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" He demanded.

The intruder rose to his feet.

"Don't move!"

"Put away the gun, Spencer. You don't want to hurt yourself."

Spencer flinched at the sound of the familiar voice. He reached over and dragged back on of the curtains, exposing the room to light, which banished the shadows back to their world of darkness. His gun arm dropped at what the light revealed to him. "What?" He asked.

"You're not hallucinating," said the man in front of him. "I am real."

Spencer jerked his gun back into position. "Don't come any closer."

The man held up his hands. "Please don't shoot me. It took nearly all my strength to come here and warn you."

Spencer stared at him with disbelieving and angry eyes. "Who are you?"

The intruder smiled. "Don't you recognize yourself, Spencer. Have I changed so much in five years that you don't know me?"

Spencer held his gun on the man and surveyed him carefully. He could see that the two of them were identical in height and they had the same hair color, except that the intruder's locks were sprinkled with gray. Their eye color matched exactly, but "the other," as he thought of the intruder, was at least fifteen pounds lighter. His face wore a full beard and mustache. The strangest and most alarming feature was the orange prison jumpsuit the intruder wore.

"You're a trick, a hallucination brought on by stress or worse something Mr. Scratch has dreamed up to torment me."

"Mr. Scratch hasn't trapped you, _yet_."

"What's that supposed to mean. Is he going to drug me and make me hurt someone? Are you part of it?

"Because I'm from the future, five years in the future to be exact."

"What?" Spencer spat out incredulously. "Time travel isn't possible. Newton's theory of relativity forbids it."

The intruder smiled, and it was the smile of someone that had nothing to live for and chills crawled done Spencer's spine.

"You're right, time travel as you see it in the movies is impossible. I don't have a bulky machine I built from spare computer parts and duct tape. I'm here because I willed it so."

"That's crazy! I should call the local cops. You obviously escaped from some prison and…"

"If you don't listen to me, you'll spend the rest of your life in prison for a murder you didn't commit."

More than anything, the tone in which the intruder spoke made Spencer lower his gun. It was the voice of someone utterly devoid of hope, but perfectly sane and sober. He dropped down onto the edge of the hotel bed, and he couldn't breathe properly for several moments.

"Murder," he finally repeated. It was as though someone had punched him in the gut. His stomach roiled, and nausea pushed his gag reflex to the limit. "Who? Why?"

"Rosa Medina, but we found out after my drugging that her real name is Nadine Ramos."

"Why?" Spencer repeated.

"We believe, but were never able to prove, that it was Mr. Scratch. He ambushed me, drugged me then he killed her. My memories are still hazy, even after five years, but I remember trying to stop him and in the process, leaving my blood and prints on the murder weapon."

Spencer stared at the intruder who purported to be his future self. It couldn't be true. He swallowed over his heart because it had climbed into his throat and beat behind his Adam's Apple.

"Scratch drugs his victims with a specific cocktail. Weren't you screened for those drugs?"

"I was, by the Mexican authorities, but the results disappeared from the record."

Spencer's blood had suddenly turned to ice, and he began to shake as though he'd he was a birch tree in a high wind. Then something clicked in his head. "Wait! I thought you said you were never able to clear your name. What happened?"

His doppelganger smiled, but it was a terrible smile, like that of a leering corpse. "Three months, two days, and three hours after I was convicted, Mr. Scratch was killed by a drunk driver."

"Maybe it wasn't – "

"It was him. He was positively identified, and the medical examiner took a DNA sample, which matched the evidence from his crimes. He died, and he took any chance of exoneration with him to the grave."

Spencer didn't want to believe the story, but he recognized truth when he heard it. But how? How was it possible?"

"I still don't understand."

"You still don't understand."

They spoke at the same time, and the urge to giggle was so incongruent with the current situation, he nearly gave in to a scream of frustration.

"Actually," Spencer continued, "understanding isn't the problem. What I don't know how to process is your presence in this room. If you're me, how did you get here? How do I know you're not the beginning – "

"Of schizophrenia," finished the intruder

"Which proves my point that you're in my head."

Spencer's twin nodded. "I realize that I can't prove this to you by reciting facts we both know. You'll just tell me it's your subconscious trying to convince you not to go to Mexico."

Spencer felt his face relax into a smile. "Yes."

"I'm here to save you from the hell of solitary confinement, not convince you of your sanity."

"You're in solitary confinement!"

Ice encased Spencer's heart, and genuine fear made his breathing accelerate. He could detect the sour smell of his sweat and feel it trickling down his forehead and back despite the cool room.

"Yes, I'm a former FBI agent. I'm there for my safety, at least that's what they told me. I spend twenty-three hours alone every day and one hour every day, in the exercise area with a couple of guards. I have excessive free time on my hands. When I realized that I'd never go home again, I began to think about why I'd made the decisions, I'd made, and that led to a desire to change the past."

"But, you can't change the past."

"I knew that, but as time went by, the longing grew until one day I was sitting on my bunk and contemplating suicide."

Spencer jolted. "No," he whispered through sandpaper dry lips.

His twin went on as if he didn't hear the denial. "I was trying to think of a way to do it, and I felt this rage at myself for making the decision that led me right into Mr. Scratch's trap. I remember blinking, then feeling this pull on my upper body. I tried to open my eyes, but they were sealed shut as if someone has glued them to my cheeks. Then the pulling sensation stopped. I opened my eyes, and I was standing in my apartment. My mother was there, but asleep. I thought I was dreaming, but then I realized that it was the day before I left to come here. I could feel my feet on the ground, smell the scents of the flowers I'd put in the room for mom. I was thirsty because I'd just come from the exercise room, and I was crying. I could feel the tears on my face. I knew it wasn't just an extremely vivid dream."

"If that's true, why didn't you stay there?"

"I wanted to, but then I heard footsteps, and that scared the hell out of me. I think that jolted me out of the past and back to the present, or what I know as the present. I was back in my cell and completely freaked out by what I'd done."

"I feel like I've arrived in the "Twilight Zone," Spencer said.

"This isn't a dream or an old time sci-fi television show. This is real, Spencer you must believe me, or you will be me."

"How did you get here at this time, and on this day?"

"I traveled to the past sixteen times before I found a way to control where and when I arrived."

"Sixteen times," Spencer squeaked. "How is that possible. If someone saw you'd, I'd know about it."

"I was incredibly lucky. Every time I'd make the journey, I managed to appear in a place away from prying eyes. Over time, I learned to control my travels and appear at specific times. I wanted to talk to family and the team when I made these journeys, but I forced myself to observe and not interact because I was forming a plan to change my fate."

"I don't believe in fate."

"You will if you don't change what comes next."

"I still don't believe this isn't some dream or hallucination."

His double sighed. "I don't have the time to spend trying to convince you. If I'm not back in my cell in the next ten minutes, they'll think I somehow escaped, and if I reappear after the alarm – well, I don't know what they'd do to me."

"Then you better come up with a better idea to convince me of your time travel abilities."

"I can. All you have to do is believe in what your eyes tell you."

"I don't know what you mean." Spencer snapped.

"You will, and you'll believe."

"If I do believe you and I do what you say, what about Mr. Scratch."

"Don't do anything. Just wait, and a drunk driver will take care of him for you. Go home Spencer, spend time with your mom and FBI family, find someone and have children. Get on with your life!"

"Wait, how long do I have to wait for this to be over."

"Watch the news on August 31st, 2017, and then you'll know. In the meantime, don't set foot in Mexico, please."

Spencer opened his mouth to argue, but his double only smiled, blinked, and simply vanished from view. He stared at the empty chair and wondered if he'd just had the first symptoms of his mother's disease. Then, Spencer noticed something on the desk. It was a slip of paper with a message written in his handwriting. "Remember what I said, Spencer. Go home and live your life."

He crushed the paper in his hand and closed his eyes. It was all a dream; it had to be. He'd written the note on some random scrap of paper and – he took another look at the note and realized it was written in heavy black letters that blotted out portions of a newspaper article. His hand began to tremble when he turned it over and saw the date. September 17th, 2022!

CMCMCMCMCMCMCM

On the morning of August 31st, 2017, Spencer got up early, showered, dressed, and turned on the television he rarely watched. The morning news seemed interminable until they began to talk about an accident that occurred a day prior. Peter Lewis, aka, Mr. Scratch, an escaped criminal had been killed in an accident with a drunk driver. He sat, unable to hear the end of the news report because he couldn't stop shaking. If he hadn't decided to heed his future self's warning and stay away from Mexico, would he be rotting in jail?

Spencer turned off the television and went to his book shelves. He removed a copy of "The Purloined Letter," and opened it. A scrap of newspaper fell to the floor. He picked it up and turned it over. It bore the date of September 17th, 2022. He didn't know how it existed in his world, but he'd hold onto it until time caught up with him. In the meantime, he'd do as his doppelganger has begged, he'd spend time with his family, and he'd make every attempt to live a happy life.


End file.
